Colorado Struggles to Run Bears Out of Town

That is the message state wildlife officials are sending residents of Colorado communities besieged by hungry black bears with a taste for fresh-baked pies and other fattening human fare.

ENLARGE

A black bear roams a street in downtown Aspen, Colo., last month, hunting for food. Local police have fielded more than 460 calls for help dealing with bears since July 1, as the animals develop a preference for high-calorie human fare.
The Denver Post

In hundreds of brazen -- and sometimes violent -- incursions this summer, the bears are bursting into homes, ripping open cars, ravaging trash bins and strolling insouciantly down busy streets.

In Aspen, the hardest-hit town, police have received more than 460 calls for help dealing with bears since July 1, including 15 during one 24-hour period last week. Wildlife officials say the bears are not only comfortable with humans, but are also teaching their cubs to scavenge for fried chicken and candy instead of acorns and berries.

So wildlife officials are begging anyone who encounters a bear in an urban setting to be mean to it: Shout, throw rocks -- anything to make the animals associate people with fear and discomfort instead of greasy treats.

"People will say, 'I went "shoo, shoo!" ' That's not what we're looking for," said Randy Hampton, a spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "We have to make it uncomfortable for them to be here."

There has been one fatal bear attack in the state this year, involving a woman who defied years of warnings and persisted in feeding bears in southwest Colorado.

Other encounters have been less grave -- but still frightening.

In Aspen on Monday, a bear attacked a woman dozing on her deck, injuring her leg. Two weeks ago, another bear broke into an Aspen home and clawed the homeowner when she surprised him as he rifled through some chocolate toffee. Both bears were euthanized.

State wildlife officials estimate they have killed more than 40 bears this year that attacked humans or repeatedly encroached on urban areas.

That's higher than normal, but not unprecedented; a similar number of bears were put down in 2002 and 2007. But those years were marked by bad weather that destroyed much of the berry crop and made bears desperate for food. This year, the berry and acorn supply is ample in much of the state. Yet some bears have apparently come to prefer human fare in their quest to pack in as much as 20,000 calories a day to bulk up before hibernating.

"We have two generations of bears that have figured out they can make a much better living off human food," said Tyler Baskfield, a state wildlife spokesman.

Black bears are one of the largest mammals in North America. They're about three feet high at the shoulder and six feet long and can easily weigh 300 pounds. In late summer and fall, they enter a feeding-frenzy phase, foraging up to 20 hours a day. They can smell food from five miles away; once they find a cache of calories, they remember the location, return often and teach their cubs.

"The moment a bear is rewarded by figuring out there's food in these funny boxes we live in, you can't build a door or a window that will keep him out," said Mr. Hampton, the state wildlife spokesman.

Stewart Breck, a federal carnivore ecologist in Ft. Collins, Colo., has documented that bears near Yosemite choose to break into minivans more often than other vehicles, presumably because they expect to find more food.

The black bear population has been growing across much of the U.S., leading to a spike in human-bear encounters not just in Colorado but also along the Eastern seaboard. In New York, bears have expanded their range considerably; this summer, there were several bear-car collisions in the northwest part of the state. In New Jersey, bear damage and nuisance complaints are up 20% over last year.

The first response is often education: Teaching residents to bear-proof their homes and eliminate temptations such as bird feeders or dog food on the porch.

But a study by federal, state and university researchers in Colorado has found education is not all that effective, Mr. Breck said. A percentage of the population will ignore public-service ads, verbal warnings and even tickets for violations such as leaving out trash.

Colorado officials are considering issuing more bear-hunting licenses, but wildlife officials say that isn't the answer, either, because hunters don't bag the bears that hang out in urban areas.

The key, officials say, will be persuading folks in affected towns that it's their civic duty to harass intruding bears. They say it's safe to yell and throw rocks from a distance -- never corner a bear -- because black bears are generally timid and would rather run than confront.

Still, it's a hard sell. Many residents cherish the bruins as majestic symbols of the wild and relish the chance to see them up close.

So even as paramedics were treating the bloody claw marks across her back, Aspen resident Maureen Hirsch tried to deflect blame from the toffee-loving bear responsible, insisting he wasn't aggressive -- she had just startled him.

She and her husband, Tom, see bears cutting through their backyard all the time. They can't imagine throwing rocks. "Why would we haze a bear?" Mr. Hirsch asked.

Mrs. Hirsch plans instead to make sure her neighbors lock up their garbage. "This is a people problem," she said. "It's not a bear problem."

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